Generative man

Generative man is described by Erik Erikson. This is the good man who is dedicated to the maintenance and ecological strength of the human race. Fulfilment is in the confirming recognition of his children and the children of others. His hope is that each child born into the world is wanted and cared for. He realizes that growth of the human race must be severely limited if the species is to be maintained. Generative man is, in the wider sense, also committed not only to the physical preservation of the race but to its wider ecological integrity. This implies curtailing the uncontrolled economic and technical expansion which pollutes the natural environment and weakens the fabric of social existence.

The so-called lower man - the animal, primitive and child - contains important regulatory and organizing powers which are essential for maintenance and restoration of the ecological integrity of man; but it does not function with the precision and specificity of instinct in the animal world and has constantly to be restated in the context of man's more progressive capacities for autonomy, conscious reflection, responsibility and purposive activity. Generative man restores what is most truly animal and most truly human, childlike and adult, primitive and civilized. As well as prudent control of the excesses of modernity there is wise use of its opportunities. Structural differentiation, rapid social change and the multiplication of options in modern life have broken down the meaningful, shared rituals that give integrity and coherence to a civilization. When stable yet flexible patterns of mutuality do not exist then neither society nor the individual has the capacity to submit to meaningful change in the context of commonly acknowledged continuities. Appreciating the necessity for innovation and for tradition, generative man is a creative ritualizer. Modern techniques and technology have to be balanced - they may remove toil and disease from life but they must not expand unchecked in ecologically unsound gigantism. All human activity is judged from the perspective of its contribution to the generative task, the establishment and maintenance of succeeding generations so there can be no completely autonomous human enterprise - art, knowledge, pleasure cannot exist as ends in themselves. Because generative man has free access to his own childhood depths he is able to enter creatively into dialogue with his own and other children.